The Eulogies of Howard: A Vision

by William Hayley

I was suddenly transported to the confines of a region, which astonished me by its loveliness and extent; it was called, The Paradise of true Glory. As I approached the entrance, my eyes were delightfully fascinated by two beings of human form, who presided over the portal. Their names were Genius and Sensibility:—it was their office to gratify with a view of this Paradise every mortal that revered them sincerely; and to reject only such intruders as presumed to treat either the one or the other with the insolence of disdain, or the coldness of contempt: an incident that I should have thought impossible, from the transcendent beauty which is visible in each; but, to my surprize, they informed me it very frequently happened.

As I readily paid them the unsuspected homage of my soul, I was graciously permitted to pass the gate.—Immediately as I entered, I was saluted with a seraphic smile, by two benignant and inseparable Spirits: these were Gratitude and Admiration, the joint rulers of the dominion—"You are welcome," said the first, in a tone of angelic tenderness—"You are welcome to a scene utterly new to your senses, and in harmony with your heart: you delight in the praises of the deserving: and you are now wafted to a spot, where those who have merited highly of mankind are praised in proportion to their desert, and where the praise of exalted merit is fondly listened to by an extensive human audience, here purified by our supernatural agency from all the low and little jealousies of the earth."

I had hardly answered this pleasing information by a grateful obeisance to my radiant informer, when I perceived, in a gorgeous prospect that now opened before us, three structures of stupendous size and superior magnificence. The first was situated in a grove of olives, and appeared to me like an ancient temple of Attica, remarkable for massive strength, and a sober dignity—the second was less solid, but richer in decoration; and seemed to be almost surrounded by every tree and plant on which Nature has bestowed any salutary virtue: the third was shaded only by palms; the form of it was so wonderfully grand and aweful, that it struck me as a sanctuary for every pure and devout spirit from all the nations of the globe.

"These structures, that you survey with astonishment," said one of my benevolent conductors, "are devoted to what you mortals denominate the three liberal professions, Law, Medicine, and Theology. Whoever has a claim to distiguished honour from any one of the three, has a just encomium pronounced upon his services by the temporary President of that particular fabrick, in which he is entitled to such grateful remembrance." "Alas!" I replied, with a murmur that I could not suppress, "the Man whose well-deserved praises I most anxiously expected to hear in this region, belonged not to any one of these eminent classes in human life—he had no profession but that of Humanity."

"Be patient," said the sweetest of my aetherial guides, with a rebuke that was softened by a smile of indulgence! "Let not your zeal for the honour of an individual, however meritorious, make you unjust, or insensible, to the merit of others! Assume the temper of this region, where praise is distributed by equity and affection, but where prejudice and partiality are not allowed to intrude!—Let us advance," continued my monitor, with an encouraging movement of her hand; "it is time that I should lead you to the nearest assembly."

I obeyed with reverential silence; and as I passed the vestibule of the majestic edifice, my heart panted with an aweful expectation of beholding the shades of Solon, Lycurgus, and other departed Legislators, from the various nations of the world. I was chearfully surprized by a very different spectacle.

The capacious structure was filled with a concourse of living mortals, lively, yet respectable in their appearance, evidently belonging to many countries; but all, as I perceived by their habits, connected with the Law. Throughout all the multitude I heard no sound of dissention or debate: but over all there reigned an air of intelligence and sympathy, while all were hushed in silent expectance, and eager attention, with their eyes directed to an elevated tribunal:—On this a personage was sitting, whose majestic figure I immediately recollected. His countenance is marked with that austerity and grandeur, which are the external characteristicks of Law herself. His heart, as those who know it ultimately declare, expresses the tender and beneficent influence of that Power, who is the acknowledged parent of security and comfort. With a voice that pervaded the most distant recesses of the extensive dome, and in tones that sunk deep into the bosom of every auditor, he pronounced the following oration:

"After passing many years of life in the painful investigation of human offences, it is with peculiar satisfaction that I find myself commissioned to commemorate, in this Assembly, a character of virtue without example—a character, at once so meek and so sublime, that, if a feeling spirit had been poisoned with misanthropy from too close a contemplation of mortal crimes, this character alone might serve as an antidote to the word of mental distempers, and awaken the most callous and sarcastic mind to confess the dignity of our Nature, and the beneficence of our God. In stating to you the merits of HOWARD, I might expatiate with delight on the various qualities of this incomparable man; I might trace his progress through the different periods of a life always singular and always instructive. I could not be checked by any fear of overstepping the modesty of Truth in the celebration of Virtue, so solid and so extensive, that the malevolence of Envy could not diminish its weight, the fondness of Enthusiasm could not amplify its effects. But I must not forget that there are professional limits to my discourse. It is incumbent on me to confine myself to a single object, and to dwell only on those public services, that peculiarly endear the name of Howard to the liberal and enlightened community in which I have the honour to preside.

"It was in the capacity of a Minister to Justice, that the pure spirit, whom it is my glory to praise, first conceived the idea of those unrivaled labours that have rendered his memory a treasure to mankind. In discharging a temporary office, that exposed to him the condition of criminals, he was led to meditate on the evils which had grievously contaminated the operations of Justice. He perceived that Law herself, like one of her most illustrious Delegates (I mean the immortal Bacon), was grossly injured by the secret and sordid enormities of her menial servants: that Captivity and Coercion, those necessary supporters of her power, instead of producing good, often gave birth to mischiefs more flagrant, and more fatal, than those which they were employed to correct. He found, even in the prisons of his own humane and enlightened country, an accumulation of the most hideous abuses: he found them not nurseries of penitence and amendment, but schools of vice and impiety; or dens of filth, famine, and disease: not the seats of just and salutary correction and punishment, but the strong holds of cruelty and extortion. The irons of the prisoner, which he only beheld, entered into his soul, and awakened unextinguishable energy in a spirit, of which companion and fortitude were the divine characteristicks. In the noble emotions of pity for the oppressed, and of zeal for the honour and interest of civilized society, he conceived perhaps the sublimest design that ever occupied and exalted the mind of man, the design to search and to purify the polluted stream of Penal Justice, not only throughout his own country, but through the various nations of the world. How low, how little, are the grandest enterprizes of Heroic Ambition, when compared with this magnanimous pursuit! How frivolous and vain are the highest aims of Fancy and Science, when contrasted with a purpose so beneficently great! But, marvellous as the magnitude of HOWARD'S enterprise appears, on the slightest view that magnitude becomes doubly striking, when we contemplate at the same time the many circumstances that might either allure or deter him from the prosecution of his idea. Consider him as a private gentleman, possessed of ease and independence, accustomed to employ and amuse his mind in retired study and philosophical speculation; arrived at that period of life, when the springs of activity and enterprize in the human frame have begun to lose their force! consider that his health, even in youth, had appeared unequal to common fatigue! his stature low! his deportment humble! his voice almost effeminate! Such was the wonderful being, who relinquished the retirement, the tranquillity, the comforts, that he loved and enjoyed, to embark in labours at which the most hardy might tremble; to plunge in perils from which the most resolute might recede without a diminution of honour. Under all these apparent disadvantages, unsummoned, unauthorized by any Prince, unexcited by any popular invitation, he resolved to investigate all the abuses of imprisonment; to visit the abodes of wretchedness and infection; and to prove himself the friend of the friendless, in every country that the limits of his advanced life would allow him to examine. Against such an enterprize, projected by such an individual, what forcible arguments might be urged, not only by every selfish passion, but even by that prudence, and that reason, which are allowed to regulate an elevated mind! How plausibly did Friendship exclaim to Howard, 'Your projects are unquestionably noble; but they are above the execution of any individual: you are unarmed with authority; you have the wish to do great good, but the power of doing little! Consider the probable issue of the undertaking!—You will see a few hapless wretches, and tell their condition to the inattentive world; perhaps perish yourself from contagion, before you have time to tell it; and leave your afflicted friends to lament your untimely fate, and the ungrateful Publick to deride your temerity!' What force of intellect, what dignity of soul were required to prevent a mortal from yielding to remonstrances so engaging! The divine energy of Genius and of Virtue enabled HOWARD to foresee, that the sanctity of his pursuit would supply him with strength and powers far superior to all human authority:—His piercing mind comprehended that there are enormities of such a nature, that to survey and to reveal them is to effect their correction.—He felt that his sincere compassion for the oppressed, and his ardent desire to promote perfect justice, would serve him as a perpetual antidote against the poison of fear.—He felt that in the darkness of dungeons he should want no associates, no guards to defend him against the outrages of detected extortion, or suspicious brutality.—He felt, that as his purpose was heavenly, the powers of Heaven would be displayed in his support; that iniquity and oppression would not dare to lift a hand against him, though they knew it was the business of his life to annihilate their sway in their most secret dominion. How admirably did the progress of his travels evince and justify the pure and enlightened confidence of his spirit! All dangers, all difficulties, vanish before his gentleness, his regularity, his perseverance. Insolence and ferocity seem to turn, at his approach, into docility and respect. Every hardship he endures, every step he advances, in his wide and laborious career of Beneficence, instead of impairing his strength, invigorates his frame; instead of diminishing his influence, increases the utility of his conduct, by making the world acquainted with the sanctity of his character. Witness, ye various regions of the earth! with what surprize, delight, and veneration, ye beheld an unarmed, and unassuming traveller instructing you in the sublime science of mitigating human misery, and giving you a matchless example of tenderness and magnanimity! O, England! thou generous country! ever enamoured of glory, contemplate in this, the most perfect of thy illustrious sons; contemplate those virtues, and that honour, in which thy parental spirit may most happily exult!—What spectacle can be more flattering to thy native, thy honest pride, than to behold the proudest potentates of distant nations listening with pleasure to a private Englishman; and learning, from his researches, how to relieve the most injured of their subjects! how to abolish the enormities of perverted Justice! To form a complete account of the good arising to the world from the life and labours of Howard, would be a task beyond the limits of any human mind: an exact statement of the benefits he has conferred upon society, could be rendered only by the attendant Spirit whom Providence commissioned to watch over him, and who might discern, by the powers of supernatural vision, what pregnant sources of public calamity he crushed in the seed, and what future virtues, in various individuals, he may draw into the service of mankind by the attraction of his example.

"Of good, more immediately visible, which his exertions produced, there is abundant evidence in his own country. In the wide circle of his foreign excursion, what nation, what city, does not bear some conspicuous traces of his intrepid and indefatigable beneficence! Of the astonishing length to which his zeal and perseverance extended, we have the most ingenuous and satisfactory narration in those singularly meritorious volumes which he has given to the world. In these we behold the minute detail of labours to which there is nothing similar, or second, in the history of public virtue; and for which there could be no adequate reward but in the beatitude of Heaven. An eloquent Enthusiast, whose genius was nearly allied to frenzy, has expressed a desire to present himself before the tribunal of the Almighty Judge, with a volume in his hand, in which he had recorded his own thoughts and actions: if such an idea could be suitable to the littleness of man, if it could become any mortal of faculties so limited to make such an offering to the great Fountain of all intelligence, that mortal must assuredly be Howard: for where could we find another individual, not professedly inspired, who might present to his Maker a record of labours so eminently directed by Piety and Virtue! a book, addressed to mankind, without insulting their weakness, or flattering their passions! a book, whose great object was to benefit the world, without seeking from it any kind of reward! a book, in which the genuine modesty of the Writer is equal to his unexampled beneficence! The mind of Howard was singularly and sublimely free from the common and dangerous passion for applause: that passion which, though taken altogether, it is certainly beneficial to the interests of mankind, yet frequently communicates inquietude and unsteadiness to the pursuits of Genius and Virtue. As human praise was never the object of his ambition, so he has nobly soared above it. There appear, in different ages upon the Earth, certain elevated spirits, who, by the sublimity of their conceptions, and the magnanimity of their conduct, attain a degree of glory which can never be reached by the keenest followers of Fame—They seek not panegyricks; and panegyricks can add nothing to their honour. The Eulogies have perished which were devoted by the luxuriant genius of Tully, and by the laconic spirit of Brutus, to the public virtue of Cato; yet the name of that illustrious Roman is still powerful in the world, and excites in every cultivated mind, an animating idea of independent integrity. The name of Howard has superior force, and a happier effect. It is a sound, at which the strings of humanity will vibrate with exultation in many millions of hearts. Through the various nations that he visited, the mere echo of his name will be sufficient to awaken that noblest sensibility, which at once softens and elevates the soul. Every warm hearted and worthy individual who mentions Howard will glow with an honest, a generous satisfaction, in feeling himself the fellow-creature of such a man. Wherever the elegant arts are established, they will contend in raising memorials to his honour. Indeed, the globe itself may be considered as his Mausoleum; and the inhabitants of every prison it contains, as groups of living statues that commemorate his virtue. There is no class of mankind by whom his memory ought not to be cherished, because all are interested in those evils (so pernicious to society! so dangerous to life!) which he was ever labouring to lessen or exterminate. It might be wished, that different communities should separately devise some different tribute of respect to him whose character and conduct is so interesting to all: not for the sake of multiplying vain and useless offerings to the dead, but to impress with more energy and extent his ennobling remembrance on the heart and soul of the living. It is hardly possible to present too frequently to the human mind the image of a man who lived only to do good. I mean not merely such a resemblance of his form as Art may execute with materials almost as perishable as the image of human clay, but such an impression of his soul as may have a more lasting influence on the life and conduct of his admirers, such as, diffusing among them a portion of his spirit, may in some measure perpetuate his existence.